Chapter 16
Rosalind had insisted on attending the Sunday service.
Insisted.
Mr. Green, bless him, had handled Wednesday night and had offered with an open heart and gentle eyes to administer Sunday’s as well, but she would not hear it, even when Matthew said it would be well enough.
Something had burst inside her at the announcement of Douglas Muir coming to London, her London. She was not going to hide any longer.
She would meet the congregation head-on, she had decided. She was not fire like Vix. She was not elegance like Hannah. She was not clever retort like Mae. But she was Rosalind, and that was going to have to be well enough.
And when she said that to her husband, he only smiled at her in that soft, dazed way of his like she had told him she was made of frosting and fluff and that he was welcome to have a bite anytime he wished.
He hadn’t yet, of course. Had a bite. No matter how often she demonstrated how much better her leg was, day by day.
She wondered if she was going to have to pull a fig down from the tree outside and split it open in front of him to demonstrate that she was ready to be consumed. But, of course, that was a concern for another time.
She certainly shouldn’t be thinking about it as she laced her dress up for church, should she?
They were almost out of the arnica salve, too. She wasn’t sure how she’d go on when even her nightly sessions of his warm hands caressing her bare thigh were taken from her. They were practically all she lived for just now.
That and the kissing.
Oh, the kissing.
None of it had been quite as heated as that day after the wedding, under the fig tree, but it was all very nice just the same.
She had found his copy of The Monk and had been reading it while he was down at the church, attending his duties. She had been looking for Matthew in poor, doomed, beautiful Ambrosio. Watching for what made him fall. Was Rosalind herself more of an Antonia or a Matilda?
And which would Matthew prefer?
She had turned to the cover and amused herself with the fact that her husband shared a name with the author.
She suspected the author himself had not preferred either woman but rather Ambrosio himself, and for that she could not blame him. The descriptions of his shoulders and hair and bearing made her quite breathless as well.
She shook the thoughts from her head and took a deep breath and a sip of cold water, then, for good measure, pressed the glass to her forehead to bring her temperature down. It would not do to be thinking on such things from a pew while her husband was in the pulpit.
Oh, God, and why was the thought of him in the pulpit making it worse?
She hiccuped and turned on her heel to hurry down the stairs and out into the garden. It was her first Sunday as the vicar’s wife, and she would greet the parishioners like a good one, even if her mind was performing heretical acrobatics all the while.
Yes, she would.
Yes, she would.
Vix was already downstairs when she reached the door, sitting on the bench under the tree. Her dark, glossy hair was glaring under the early sun and flashed right into Rosalind’s eyes as her head came up.
“There you are,” she said, coming to her feet and brushing her skirt down. “I was about to come in after you.”
“Vix?” Rosalind said, glancing around as though she had missed some sort of message or indicator that her friend would be attending today. “I wasn’t expecting you.”
“You think I would let you face these vipers alone? Please,” said Vix, holding her arm out. “Come here, let me look at you. Oh, very nice. Linen was the right choice.”
“Oh, I …” Rosalind looked down at herself, a little baffled. “It was the easiest one to lace up by myself.”
Vix was already taking her arm and leading her toward the gate.
“Matthew had a bit of a coterie, I should warn you,” she said as they slushed through the dewy, ankle-length grass.
“Some of them are already married, of course, but they like to look at the handsome young vicar, and the others had aspirations. They will not like that you stole him from under their noses. You have two options for such women: haughty disregard or aggressive sweetness. I think we both know which you will choose.”
“The haughtiness, obviously,” Rosalind said weakly, making Vix laugh.
“The other group to concern yourself with are the traditionalists. They will hear your accent and catch the vapors over your Presbyterian queerness. They will be convinced you’ve come for their thuribles and gilded fonts.
There’s not much you can do there but smile at them and compliment their gauche taste. ”
“It isn’t gauche,” said Rosalind, frowning. “Not always.”
Vix rolled her eyes. “Of course it is. But it’s not Catholic, so you could always point that out.
Oh, and then there is Lord Keaton, who doesn’t know his poor ode to pederasty in marble is currently upside down in the basement.
I want you to assure him that you personally have found a sculpture restoration expert who is at work on the thing at present. ”
“But I haven’t,” Rosalind protested.
“Ambrose is finding someone. It doesn’t matter. I want you to gush about restoring its beauty and thank him and beg him to introduce you to the artist. He needs so much wind blown up his tail that he inflates. Understand?”
“I …”
“Good. Oh, God.” Vix stopped short, her brows snapping together. “Well, I didn’t account for that.”
Rosalind paused and followed Vix’s eyeline across the garden to the gathering of congregants by the gate. A shiny auburn head stood out amongst them, where a young man stood apart from the crowd, holding his hat in his hand, looking toward them with an anxious expression on his face.
He lifted his hand and waved.
“Oh,” said Rosalind, surprised. “The journalist.”
“Don’t fret,” said Vix, frowning. “I shall kill him. Give me a moment.”
“No, don’t,” said Rosalind, putting her hand out to stop the other woman. “Murder would really start my tenure off on the wrong foot, Vix.”
“Yes, but I want to,” said her friend, blinking. “Let me kill him, Rosalind. He deserves it.”
“Miss Manners,” said the journalist, coming closer, hesitating for a step as the nickname made Vix snarl at him. “I mean, Miss Murphy. Or … no, I’m sorry. Mrs. Everly.”
“Yes,” said Rosalind, tightening her grip on Vix’s forearm. “I do not know your name, sir.”
“Barnett,” he said, flushing as he closed the remainder of the distance between them. “Ezra Barnett. It is a pleasure to officially meet you.”
“Is it?” Vix snapped. “Is it a pleasure?”
“My, but you are very young, aren’t you?” Rosalind marveled, blinking at how smooth and youthful his face was up close. “You can’t be more than twenty.”
“I’ll be twenty in two months’ time,” he said with a sheepish grin and a shrug. “I wish it were not so evident.”
At that moment, Lord Keaton and his family passed by, observing the trio with open disdain. “More Jews in the parish,” Keaton said to his wife. “Is that to be the way of things now?”
Rosalind blinked after him, confused.
“He means me,” said Mr. Barnett. “I can leave. I ought to have waited, but I didn’t think you’d speak to me if I knocked on your door on a normal day. I’m sorry if I have caused more trouble.”
“Oh, sorry, are you?” Vix snapped. “For causing trouble?”
“Lady Aster is upset on my behalf,” Rosalind said gently. “You have caused trouble, of course. Quite a bit of it, but you are correct that now is not the time to discuss the matter.”
Vix flashed her teeth at him, her canines glinting sharply in the morning light.
“Ah, erm,” the boy said, looking from Rosalind to Vix with a nervous shift of his feet. “Yes, I know. Perhaps tomorrow? Would you receive me tomorrow?”
“If you bring penance,” Vix said. “She will consider it.”
“Penance?” he repeated. “What sort?”
“Penance!” she repeated, and then took Rosalind’s arm and dragged her away from the lad, who watched after them, scratching his head in puzzlement.
“Oh, Vix, that poor lad hasn’t a clue what you meant,” Rosalind tutted as she stumbled after her friend. “Ouch! My leg!”
“Oh, your leg,” Vix mumbled, halting abruptly and grimacing in apology. “Shall I carry you?”
They both paused to consider the offer, blinking at one another for a single, stretched moment of silence before collapsing into laughter.
“You probably could,” Rosalind said, hiccuping into her fingers.
“I certainly could,” Vix said with a sniff, drawing herself up to her full height as she trembled with amusement. “And we’d start another scandal entirely.”
That was how Matthew found them, heads together over the absurdity of such an offer, swallowing down giggles.
He sighed, giving Vix a look like he knew whatever had happened was entirely her fault, and ushered them both into the church without a word.
“My, but Matthew,” Vix said, batting her lashes. “You’ve nary a wrinkle on you today. What’s happened?”
He ignored her.
“Did dear Rosalind find the iron? Did she find the iron, Matthew?” Vix continued to prod, following on his heels. “Did she set you to rights? Perhaps she’ll tame that hair of yours next.”
Rosalind said nothing, hiding her smile as she paced behind them, knowing Vix was only moments away from flicking Matthew’s ear or tugging on his robes to get a rise out of him. They reminded her of how she was with Abe sometimes, and it heartened her to see it.
She always so pitied people who grew up without siblings. Matthew had none by blood, of course, but he had quite a few by merit of friendship, and for that she found him quite lucky.
“What is the sermon today?” Vix asked, when her other needles did not find purchase.
“The value of silence,” he snapped back, which made her grin.
“Not the sin of lying?” she replied, which made him whip around and glare at her.
“Perhaps we ought to be seated,” Rosalind suggested quietly. “And find out when Matthew begins.”
He blinked, glancing behind Vix at her and giving her a little chuckle. “I will never understand this friendship,” he said, gesturing between the two of them. “It makes no sense at all.”
“Perhaps fondness need not be logical,” Rosalind said with a tilt of her head. “Maybe that is why they call it chemistry, because it is volatile and unpredictable.”
It made Vix turn to look at her and share in the staring as Matthew did the same.
“There, now,” Vix said, looking back at him. “Now you’ve a sermon for next week too.”
“Perhaps I do,” he said, sounding a little off balance by it. “It will fit well into those notes I made about the body healing itself, won’t it, Rosalind?”
“Oh, perhaps!” she said, brightening. “And I finally thought of one for that. Itchiness compelling us to remove things from our skin that shouldn’t be there. Like a little message from the body to keep it clean.”
He grinned at her, his face breaking into such a handsome expression of joy that Rosalind felt her heart nearly leap into her mouth. “Perfect,” he said. “Absolutely perfect.”
Rosalind remained by the pews, greeting those who wished to meet her as they came in for the next quarter hour, until it was time to find their seats in preparation for the sermon.
By the time she sat, she had been invited to the choir practice, to the ladies’ council, and asked about reinstituting a Sunday-school program for the little ones as well.
She was more than a little stunned that it had gone so well, without any need just yet for the armor or intrigue that Vix had prepared her for.
She supposed those things might come after the service. She did notice a few glances once she was seated that were less than friendly.
But for now, and once her husband began to speak, she resolved to simply be satisfied.
For things could have been a great deal worse.